First, I have to say... This tub was incredible! The quality and craftsmanship is great! The sheet metal is nice and heavy, the form and fit was nice. This is not to say it fell together, but it was extremely close!
The only modifications I had to make were toward the front of the tub where the rocker panel meets the cowl. The width was spot on, but the rockers were slightly twisted. Meaning the top of the rockers where it curves up to a point, were tipped to the inside a bit.
This is pretty standard for mating up pieces like this. Chances are that the original factory parts didnt fit as well as we made this one fit!
So with a little bit of cutting on the inside of the tub along the floor to free up the rocker, I was able to twist the top of the rocker out to be flush with the cowl.
We also had to trim a little bit of excess to get a nice clean body seam. Again..... nothing out of the norm when mating body panels! However......... This was news to Ken who has never done anything like this. He naturally went into this Saturday morning thinking we would be done in an hour! ;-)
So the following pictures are several hours of fitting, grinding, fitting, cutting, and more fitting to get a nice clean mate up! Hope you like!
A nice tight body seam... Still not quite right though...... The "point" at the top will be welded entirely...
Here is the floor pan overlap. It sits on a structural body cross member as well.
Inside the rocker. I removed the flange that would normally bolt into that hole partially because it was holding the body seam open on the outside and also because.... its really not needed since the cowl gets welded on in so many places! Its not like you can un-bolt the cowl anyway! :)
Starting to look good! The radius following the doors looks good, and the seam is nice and tight!
Here she is all tacked in place! Its starting to look like a vehicle again!
Beautiful engine by the way!!!!
Another "tacked in" picture.
Needless to say Ken was quite happy to see some progress and of course a piece this large makes it seem like a lot of progress has made. As we all know this is the kind of stuff that gets a forgotten project rolling again!
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Stumbled across this just today. I am curious about a couple of things since I am working on a 1970 FJ 40 here in Cuenca, Ecuador. You make reference to a South American cowl in your fit up. Did you find a difference relative to a USA cowl? I am also under the impression that the cowl can indeed be unbolted, however, you indicate that it is welded in many places. Is that done from the factory or something you have developed doing by experience? Thanks, Lenny.
ReplyDeleteWe used the original cowl... The tub was purchased out of South Amereica. Not sure where exactly. As for the cowl "bolting on" it appears there are holes that you could bolt together to the tub, however I have a feeling that they may have been used during the original assembly as a way to hold the two sections together while they were welded.
ReplyDeleteI do not own this FJ, but did all the welding to put it back together. The owner separated the original cowl and tub. There were gring marks where he had cut welds between the cowl and the tub. He also told me about the welds. They were on the outside of the body, and didnt appear to be very long weld beads.
Hope this helps!
PS.... based on how this would have bolted together... I would suggest you weld the two together.. :)